~ A Journal of Democracy and Public Affairs

Monthly Archives: November 2015

On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite declared during a television broadcast that the Vietnam war was not worth it. The effect of that statement on the country was unmistakable. People trusted his judgment, and had no reason to think he would say anything other than the truth. If he was a national father figure, he was also a national conscience.

Yet indignation over this crime still feels subversive, forced underground, when the true subversion came from the perpetrators. You can still get tagged as a conspiracy nut, or buff, or theorist, or whatever derogatory label you choose, if you stick your head up and say the crime was a publicly executed coup.

The national security state that pretends to protect us will not do so. You cannot enter a struggle of the kind that has developed for fourteen years with deceit at your back. Falsehood offers no foundation for strength. Expressions of solidarity, though valuable, cannot compensate for chronic dishonesty. We have to acknowledge – and own – what we have done to extinguish the passion for death kindled in 2003.

New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison quoted, “Let justice be done though the heavens fall,” as he investigated Kennedy’s murder in the 1960s. Garrison met opposition and ridicule as he pursued his case. When the heavens fall, the calamity affects everyone. From the story of Oedipus the king until this day, open inquiry into political crimes entails high stakes for the whole community.

I can’t grasp why you would sacrifice your credibility to prove someone else is a liar. If you attribute dishonesty to an honest person, you really better know what you are doing. Then again, the excitement and buzz you create with a successful gotcha may be too tempting to forego.

The world needs leadership from a source that stands for just and free interactions, but people under threats of force see no candidates. Where will ethical leadership originate? What authoritative and respected state, acting with integrity, could possibly restore peace at this point?